American Idol set the table at 7 p.m., racking up 334,752 D-FW viewers while also rolling to another win among advertiser-prized 18-to-49-year-olds with 122,998.

Empire then ran up those scores with respective totals of 397,518 and 176,613 viewers.

Fox4’s 9 p.m. local newscast easily had enough juice to close out prime-time on a winning note. The news drew 271,986 total viewers and 100,922 in the 18-to-49 age range.

CBS pulled up second in total viewers with its regular crime time lineup of The Mentalist, Criminal Minds and Stalker. The silver medals among 18-to-49-year-olds went to ABC’s The Middle, The Goldbergs and Modern Family before CBS took over second place with the second half of Criminal Minds and Stalker.

NBC’s leadoff hitter, The Mysteries of Laura, was prime-time’s biggest loser in the key 18-to-49 demographic. It ran fifth from 7 to 8 p.m. behind Fox, ABC, CBS and Arrow on The CW.

In the network evening newscast Nielsens, NBC’s Nightly News without Brian Williams ran second in total viewers behind ABC’s World News and third among 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming). Fox4’s local 5:30 p.m. newscast also beat Nightly News in the 25-to-54 measurement. Lester Holt is now helming NBC’s flagship newscast following the six-month unpaid suspension of Williams.

Here are Wednesday’s local news derby results at the halfway point of the 20-weekday February “sweeps.”

Fox4 and Gannett8 tied for the most total viewers at 10 p.m. but Fox4 was alone on top with 25-to-54-year-olds.

Fox4 logged twin wins at 6 a.m. and NBC5 did likewise at 5 p.m.

The Peacock and Gannett8 tied for the most viewers at 6 p.m. while Gannett8 won outright with 25-to-54-year-olds.